


library fines and unorthodox forms of payment

by callmearcturus



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe, Be careful what you write your name on Carlos, Cecil is Mostly Human, M/M, Overdue Library Books Are Dangerous
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-04-23 13:40:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19152160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmearcturus/pseuds/callmearcturus
Summary: Carlos, though a serious of strange events involving the worst ex-boyfriend all time and grand larceny, finds himself in possession of a massively overdue library book from a town he's never heard of.There is no way for him to know ahead of time the costs and punishments for overdue library books from the Night Vale Public Library. Everything is kind of an accident, but to be fair, he should have known better than to just give away his name like that.





	1. Chapter 1

The nature of stories is that they have to begin somewhere. This is both a structural truth of the medium but also a necessity for the audience. Sure, it's terrible when a movie ends about seven times and drags on forever until the viewer is out of their seat before the credits even roll, forget about any sneaky codas stashed at the end of that long list of human souls responsible for making the story happen.

Worse even is the story that doesn't know where to begin.

So this story does not start with a town called Night Vale that is nestled in a somewhat ambiguous location in the United States.

Nor does it start with an even smaller town in Arizona, where Carlos ______ was born, though he is certainly important to the story.

It doesn't start with Nilanjana Sikdar telling Carlos that she worried about him, that she was something of an expert in isolation and loneliness and even she thought he needed to get out more. That is also important, and was a seed planted in the fertile soil of Carlos' discontent, watered regularly by his doubts until it grew into a great weight on his mind.

It doesn't begin in an overpriced Caribou Coffee in Wrigleyville, Chicago on a rainy day, though that's the day Carlos met Vernon. Fortunately for everyone, Vernon is merely an impetus to the story and not a focus, because fuck that guy.

Nevermind all that.

This story begins, perhaps ironically, with a library book.

 

* * *

 

Carlos ______ lived in a small apartment on the nebulous edge of Hyde Park. It was, on a good day, a long bike ride to the University campus where he taught classes and took classes as needed. He shared his home with Nilanjana Sikdar, who he'd known since on-campus living back when they were both undergrads. They hadn't dormed together or anything, but had commiserated together about how torturous it was to be stuck living with someone who didn't match your temperament.

Years later, when they also commiserated together on how unaffordable it was living alone in decent proximity to applicable jobs, the solution had been tidy and obvious. 

Each of them had a room in the apartment, and shared a living area that bled imperceptibly into a kitchen. For two people who took care not to invade one another's personal space, it was functional. And that was about all the kindness that could be said for the apartment. It functioned, but lacked the nuance of a real Home (capitalization for emphasis of the more romantic ideal of the concept). 

From Carlos' window, there was a view of the street, as well as a brutally placed lamp that kept him awake if he forgot to pull the blackout curtains. There were rugs to cover the tiled floors, but all were cheap purchases from big box stores and the occasional garage sale. The walls were an off-white, and the lease did not permit any repainting.

What it had going for it was that Carlos could bike to work and Nilanjana could walk to the phlebotomy lab she worked at. Also, the rent was locked, which was practically a miracle these days.

It was fine. But small, and didn't have an excess of room for the detritus of life.

"When you get a chance," Nilanjana said as she twirled a fork around in her take-out box, "you need to go through the stuff Vernon left and throw it out."

Carlos frowned at the TV, which was muted with the closed captions on. A silent narrator outlined the experiments the Mythbusters would be using to test some movie thing Carlos wasn't familiar with. The mustachioed man on the screen likely didn't deserve the ire Carlos was aiming at him, but neither did Nilanjana, so he could hardly aim it at her either. "I will," Carlos said quietly. "As soon as I get a chance."

Nilanjana hummed quietly, and finished a mouthful of rice before adding in a more apologetic tone, "The sooner the better for that, honestly, Carlos."

"I know," he replied quickly. "I just haven't had time."

"You were home today by three," she pointed out. There wasn't judgement in her tone, but the fact she said it aloud was a qualitative statement in of itself.

Carlos sighed, tense.

She let it go for about ten seconds, then said, "I told you no one named Vernon was worth dating."

"Hardly a scientific observation," he muttered.

Nilanjana spread out her hands, demonstrating her point by implication. "I stated a hypothesis. You conducted an experiment. The results fell in line with my expectations."

"Don't pretend the sample size isn't completely useless." He sighed again, less tense now, but louder to convey how tired he was of the subject of  _ Vernon _ .

"You're right," she said musingly. "We need a control as well. You have to run the experiment with someone else,  _ not _ named Vernon."

That at least made him smile. Nilanjana could have been an acceptable roommate and Carlos would have been pleased, but she was sometimes kind in ways that helped and improved his opinion of her tremendously. 

"But really, go throw his shit out," Nilanjana added. "What a jerk."

"I can't just throw it out." He was about finished with his lo mein and dropped the fork irritably into the container, dropping it on the coffee table. "What if there's stuff in there he stole from other museums or collections?"

"Go through it, then throw it out." She picked up the empty boxes from dinner and carried them the six feet to the kitchen to toss them out. 

"Yeah," he said, biting back another sigh, because sighing three times in such a short amount of time might indicate his unhappiness to Nilanjana, and he didn't want to burden her or anything. He would be fine; a scientist was always fine.

If Carlos were  _ not _ a scientist, than he would be justified in being super not fine given what a complete jackass Vernon had turned out the be.

Dating Vernon had be in of itself an experiment. Carlos had attempted romantic liaisons with men in his graduate program and never really got anywhere serious. So, taking the old adage 'opposites attract' to heart, he elected to try dating someone completely unlike him who shared none of his interests or career prospects.

So, he'd picked out someone who listed their astrological signs (plural) on their profile, who played guitar, and had a motorcycle. That seemed about right. Someone who had a large collection of occult objects and talked passionately about the history of each.

What Carlos did not anticipate was the fact most of Vernon's collection was stolen, that he lived in Illinois because four states had warrants out for his arrest, and that he'd use Carlos' access at the university to try to steal some heritage artifacts on loan to the campus.

Vernon was an  _ asshole,  _ albeit one with a very highly ranked eBay account _ ,  _ and Carlos had already dumped him via text message, his hands having shook so hard he'd handed the phone to Nilanjana so she could correct his typos and autocorrect mistakes.

Then, she'd blocked him. So, Nilanjana was better than just a nicely covalent roommate, really. She was a great friend, without making a big deal out of it.

The fallout of this was that there was a duffle bag left taking up some of the limited space in Carlos' room. It was a Sword of Damocles hanging over Carlos' head. Who knew what was inside it? Who else had Vernon robbed? Would Carlos be forced to look up the contact information for some museum to inform them he found their stolen goods?

There was only one way to find out, and it was the same way to handle the lingering dread that was bothering Carlos.

So, after finishing up his nightly socializing with Nilanjana and biding her goodnight, he returned to his room, shutting the door.

Just him and the bag.

Now, alone, Carlos let out a sigh, approaching the bag and sitting on the floor next to it.

Unzipping the duffle bag with all the enthusiasm of someone opening a body bag dredged from Lake Michigan, Carlos peeked inside, half expecting jewels and rolls of painted canvas to tumble out.

To his relief, there was mostly clothes. Shirts rolled up in that particular way that made packing them tight as sardines much easier, two pairs of acid-washed jeans, and socks tucked into each other. Nothing unusual.

Shaking the bag out, he pushed things aside as they were identified, confidence growing to outweigh his reticence. Everything seemed fine.

Then, something heavy slid out and slammed onto the floor loud enough to startle him. He yelped, almost falling over in surprise.

There was a thick plastic bag, uncomfortably similar to a sample bag laying on the floor. The loud sound had come from the contents impacting the hardwood just right. A hefty book sat inside the bag. Around it, scattered in the bag, were smooth, dark rocks that glinted in the pale light of the overhead lamp.

Setting the duffle aside, Carlos leaned over the book and rocks. The plastic bag made it hard to see much. Written in blocky black marker was 'NIGHT VALE, 19??' and then underneath in red pen 'NO TAKERS.'

So another stolen thing that he'd tried to sell, and stashed at Carlos' place in the meantime. Lip curling, Carlos retrieved a pair of scissors from his tiny desk. Wherever the book was from, he could at least attempt to return it. All he needed was some identifying information.

The bag opened easily with a dragging slice from the apex of the scissors. There was stale air inside, which wasn't shocking, but Carlos inhaled and tasted the aridity of sand, the sort of sand that was hundreds of miles from any ocean. He remembered the old streets of his hometown, before it began to bled population so rapidly it dried up like a puddle in the summer sun. Hot sunlight that seemed to press down upon his shoulders, turning his dark hair into heated coils.

Blinking, Carlos shook his head, settling back into Chicago and its damp autumn, the threatening chill of the oncoming winter.

"Okay," Carlos murmured, letting the memory pass him by. Cautiously, he tipped the bag over, and slip out and onto the floor in front of his crossed legs. Gingerly, he lifted one. It was hard to see with just the lamp, so he shook his phone until the flashlight came on.

The green-black of the rock popped vibrantly under the white light. Shot through it were red flecks and veins that shone even brighter, standing out vividly. Each one felt warm between his fingers, but he assumed it was just his own body heat, heightened with indignation and the small thrill of discovery.

He examined each stone, all of the same apparent type but each shining and compelling in their own way. He set them down around him, in a long arch that nearly circled him. Maybe he could keep these? How would he return a bunch of unlabeled rocks?

Unless the book made it obvious where they came from. Biting his lip, Carlos finally removed the book from the plastic, tossing the empty bag aside.

Immediately, he was surprised to find the book wasn't some old tome of great import, nothing that seemed expensive or rare. It was a hardback, but it had the thick, cumbersome dust jacket Carlos only knew from a library. It was that particular desaturated, poorly printed jacket that was taped and lashed in place to protect the book from hundreds of prying hands.

On the spine, the book was classified -040 with the identifier 'FORBIDDEN.' Which didn't sound like standard Dewey decimaling to him.

The title was 'NIGHT VALE CIVIC PROPHECIES, P - Z.'

When Carlos attempted to open the book, he couldn't. There was no visible band or lock on it, but as he tried to slide his nail in between the pages to open it somewhere around the middle, it resisted him. Coaxing a cinderblock to open would have been easier.

Brow furrowing, Carlos set the spine in his lap and tried to get his thumb nail in there to pry it open. Again, nothing.

Maybe it was a prank book, he thought. The title and the weird classification lended additional evidence to the idea. An inexplicable prank book that couldn't be opened. Or maybe it was a fake book with some sort of compartment inside? Carlos held it up to his ear and shook it, listening for something dully rocking around inside.

Nothing.

The back of the book, which might've told him something relevant about the contents, a summary of something, was almost entirely covered up. Attached to the slippery plastic jacket was a glued-on pouch. Inside, as one might expect, as a library record card.

The card itself was sitting patiently inside, the stock heavy and worn, faded purple with almost felted edges from the presumably hundreds of times it was slid in and out of the pouch. It felt soft against his fingers as he pulled it out.

 

Two things happened, nearly simultaneously.

First, Carlos observed the library record card, holding it in front of his face to squint at it. At the top, it read 'Night Vale Public Library.' Under it were two columns. On the right were stamped dates, each neatly spaced on their individual lines. At the top, the first date read 'MARCH 13, 1927'. Next to it was the name 'PETERS.'

Similarly, the dates and names continued down about twelve rows, a listing of sporadic check outs by various people over the years.

The only outlier was the final row. There was a date stamped into place: 'OCT 19, 1995'

There was no name written to match it in the left column.

That happened. Carlos observed all this swiftly.

 

Then, the other thing happened. Suddenly and viciously, Carlos' heart began to beat hard. His pulse accelerated and thundered through his ears as he gripped the faded purple card in a shaking hand. It felt like the loose fibers of the cardstock were clinging to his skin, clutching his fingers. He could not let it go. The tendons in his hand and arm strung bow-string tight.

That tension hummed, and like a taut string, it gained a tone, a voice, musical and strumming through his body as he started to gasp for breaths.

It sang to him, and said the record was incomplete, the book was not only heinously overdue, but without a name on that blank line, it was  _ STOLEN. _ And the punishment for such an overdue book was grievous and serious, but the punishment for a STOLEN book was blood and flesh, of which Carlos ______ had plenty. Plenty to spare. Plenty to pay now that the book knew its captor.

When Carlos was young, he had his first panic attack, and like many had mistaken it for an early-onset heart attack. It had been a relief to learn, no, his heart had been fine.

Now, he felt the start of his first heart attack, a different flavor of pain than the panic attacks he'd experienced so often through his life.

Carlos twisted, reaching his free hand, the one that was not frozen in place clutching the library card, and fumbled at the surface of his desk. His palm slapped damp and hand against the faux-wooden surface as he searched desperately, his mind still ringing out with the guillotine of punishment that was coming for him, coming fast and swift.

His fingers caught the hard casing of a ballpoint pen.

He whipped it off the desk, and fell onto his elbows on the floor. With his arrested hand, he pressed the card flat to the worn, uneven wood.

With his other, he shakily scrawled his last name on the line to match to extraneous date stamp.

Rolling over, he found the book on the floor, and shoved the card back into the pouch.

His frozen hand was released back under his control, fingers unclenching.

The book evaporated into black light.

Carlos slumped onto the floor and gratefully passed out.

 

* * *

 

Far, far away, in a quiet desert community, was a library.

In that library was a basket, designated for returned books. There were many other things in that library, things that breathed and stalked and dragged bent metal carts through labyrinthine halls. But the basket was the important thing here.

A book dropped into the basket. It had been missing for a long, long time.

 

* * *

Not so far away, really just a few miles away from the aforementioned library, Cecil Palmer was in the relative safety of his home when a sensation like his soul being inverted and shaken out like dish towel hit him. "Oh, no," he said passionately, with deep feeling, as he grabbed the corner of his bed, bracing enough to keep from completely collapsing as he fell to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... have no idea if I'm going to continue this? Lemme know what you think.


	2. Chapter 2

Dreaming was not often pleasant for Carlos. Dreams were sort of the worst, really. An uncertain loss of time that kicked his personal sense of agency out the window, in return flooding him with ideas that made no sense.

That was the most annoying part, really. Dreams were not scientific, and refused to bend to his will, no matter how many videos he watched about lucid dreaming. And to make everything that much worse, he was often plagued by manifestations of his anxiety. Hunting for faceless lovers in crowded theatres and stepping on everyone's foot as he went, playing some variant of The Most Dangerous Game with a mob of students who wanted to kill him then stuff him into his office to do longer office hours, and reliving an old memory of being caught in an undertow while at the beach with his family-- all were prominent and reliable visions that haunted his sleep.

This time, he dreamt of walking barefoot through sand. It was the dead of night, but a bright evening that made every grain of quartz catch and shimmer, until the sloping dunes were like runways guiding him along. With every step, his toes slipped under, just a few centimeters, enough to make his walking an effort. But it was cool as fresh water against his feet, refreshing like nothing he'd ever felt before.

It was so bright, but there was no moon overhead. Instead, every star burned vividly, no light pollution in the way of their astounding light.

His legs felt a little tired, but he wanted to keep going. He wanted the journey, wanted this place that was so much gentler than Arizona. And gentler than Chicago, but from the diametrically opposite direction, like he'd found the perfect median between them. His eyes filled with the blue-grey gleam of the quartz sand, the specks of light expanding outward and outward and

And waking up was not nearly as pleasant. Normally, coming out of a dream was a relief to Carlos.

This time, his shoulder was pressed hard against the floor, his arm bent at a bad angle that has him tingling from fingertips up along his arm. His glasses were bent into his face, painfully, probably leaving a mark.

Cold floor, but he wasn't shivering. Groaning softly, Carlos placed a hand down and pushed himself gingerly up.

"Ow," he muttered when he managed to get one of those rocks under him. Knocking it away, he pushed up more carefully. "Quartz. Jasper-y quartz. And, uh, hematite."

"Oooh, well spotted, but we usually just call those bloodstones!" says a cheery voice above him. "Stepped on a few before, you should really have a proper altar."

Carlos scrambled up to sit. He'd passed out and now there was a new voice in his bedroom, and _shit!_

Briefly, he got tangled a little in the granny-square blanket that was hanging off him. As soon as it slipped off his shoulders, he shivered; Illinois nights were cold. "Who are you? Who the fuck are you? What's going on?"

It was still his room; even in the dark, he could tell the particular way the over-bright streetlamp shone in under the curtains. It didn't illuminate much, but he could pick out a figure standing a careful few feet away. He noticed _tallish_ and _strange eyes_ before anything. Well, tall was relative, especially for Carlos.

Then, he noticed the person was wrapped up in the duvet, clearly taken from Carlos' bed. It was quilted and the stranger had it wrapped around themselves like a robe. Their feet were bare and pressed together.

"Oh, hm, well, that's two of the same question, then…" The stranger paused with a soft hum, pressing their fingertips together and tapping their mouth. "Wait, actually, I can answer both, technically, now that I think about it. Sorry, little frazzled from the trip. I'm Cecil Palmer. I'm the Voice of Night Vale. And Iiiiii don't _quite_ know what's going on, actually!" He tilted his head, and with it his low sloping shoulders, and his spine followed along. "Kind of going to need your help with that, Mister…?"

"Doctor," Carlos corrected instantly. He sat with his back against his desk and dragged a shaking hand through his hair. "Carlos. Doctor Carlos--"

And Carlos stopped, his face pinching into a tight, unhappy expression. "Wait. Doctor Carlos…"

The stranger-- Cecil-- widened his eyes and said, "Oooh. I see." He switched the foot he was standing on and rubbed them together again. "Misplaced something?"

"I haven't misplaced anything, I-- I--" The unwelcome visitor in his bedroom became secondary to the simple fact he couldn't remember his last name. "I have amnesia."

"Hm! No," Cecil said. Then, waving a hand out from under his snugly wrapped duvet, long fingers flashing in the dimness. "Or, well, maybe, I don't know the entire catalog of your earthly experiences and how well-maintained the whole thing is, but if you're referring to your _name_ … Probably not. Hey, _sorry_ , this is super rude and I know you're a little eeeeeeeheh right now," he waggled his fingers at Carlos, seeming to indicate the totality of his predicament, "but where am I? It's _really_ cold in here, I'm something of a greenhouse guy. Do you have slippers I could borrow? I didn't want to turn on the light while you were sleeping."

Slowly, Carlos grabbed the edge of his desk and hauled himself to his feet. He staggered a bit, and Cecil reached out as if ready to steady him. "I was… hang on." He pushed his glasses up to rub his eyes. "There was a book. Something weird, like prophecies. I think? It was something dumb."

"Prophecies are very serious," Cecil said gravely. Briefly, Carlos squinted at him through the dark. Wow, his voice, that was sure… something.

"I couldn't open it, but there was-- was a card, a record card in the back. I picked it up, and it got…. _really angry with me._ " He shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself, not chilled per se but a fissure of cold opened up in his memory. "It wasn't my fault, but it was so mad at me!"

Cecil nodded slowly. "Given how high the fine was, it must've been away from the library a long time. Books can grow mad from their isolation, from such distance away from their homes. If it's any consolation, the angry wasn't personal. You were just a handy outlet. And hey, you returned it! That's good. They don't stay mad once the fine's paid."

"What fine," Carlos said, irritation leaking into his voice. "Why did a-- a library book try to kill me and why is there a strange man in my bedroom? God, my head hurts."

"I have to come when I'm called," aforementioned strange man said. "Comes with the job. You're a doctor, I'm sure you understand."

"Not that kind of doctor," Carlos grumbled. "I'm turning on the light. I have a roommate, if you try anything funny, I'll yell and she'll hear me. She has a bat."

"Omigod, I love bats! Oh, you mean a baseball bat. Don't like those. Not a sports guy, if you know what I mean."

Carlos found the dangling metal ball chain of his desk lamp and tugged it.

There was a little gasp, and Cecil put his hand over his mouth. His nails were painted a matte maroon color; it clashed horribly with the purple acetate of his glasses. However, the glasses _did_ match his pale lilac eyes.

He slowly lowered his hand; there was a rich flush over his face. "Hi," he said, drawing out the syllable in a low sing-song tone.

"Is that your natural eye color?" Carlos stepped cautiously forward, pushing his glasses up his nose to peer at his visitor.

"'Natural' is a limited term. Is that little splash of silver there natural?" Cecil flicked his fingers against his own hair, near his temples.

"Stress and genetics at work."

"You wear it super well," Cecil said, looking sharply away, around the room. "So, where am I?"

"Chicago."

"Shecago," he repeated, imperfectly. He walked on his toes to the window, wincing at the cold floor. Drawing the curtain aside, he gasped again. "Oh, _wow._ "

"Chicago. Chi, Chi-town? Illinois?"

"Isn't that a Sufjan Stevens album?"

"Why can't I remember my last name?"

"Library fines," Cecil said, distracted as he looked around as much as the narrow window would allow. "This town is _huge!"_

"It's not really a town, it's a metropolis. What do you mean by library fines? What kind of library fine gives you targeted amnesia?"

Cecil straightened, letting the curtain go and quickstepping back onto the rug again. "It's not amnesia. It's the payment for overdue books surpassing twenty years. You wrote your name on the slip, sooooo…" He shrugged.

"This is-- it's ridiculous. I'm going to just go ask Nilanjana. She'll know what my name is." He backed up, and pointed at Cecil. "Don't-- you don't go anywhere. Don't touch anything."

Cecil toodled his fingers and watched Carlos slip out of the room.

The apartment was small. Two steps took him past the bathroom, then two more to Nilanjana's door. Hoping he wasn't waking her (and really, how long had he been knocked out on the floor?), Carlos tapped his knuckles on her door.

When she opened it, her glasses were off, and she was narrow-eyed and tired-looking. "Sorry," Carlos whispered.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Sorry, Nils, I know it's late but it's super important. Like, the most important thing."

She hummed an affirmative, resting her forehead on the frame of the door.

"What's my name?"

She opened one eye to glare at him. "Carlos."

He waved his hand in a circle, the universal _go on_ gesture.

"Carlos…. Carlos." She lifted her head, brow furrowing. "Hm. That's strange. I know it, obviously, I'm just… tired."

Carlos, though, said "Oh my god," and dashed away from the door. "Where's my wallet? It has to be here."

The door creaked as Nilanjana followed him. "Carlos, holy shit, what's wrong?"

There was a sideboard where they tended to throw their keys and hang their bags. His wallet was there, and he snatched it up, turning on the kitchen light to see it.

Like with all wallets, it took serious effort and elbow grease to work his ID out of the plastic sleeve it lived in. They always fit in too tightly. Still, he wrenched it out, and held it up.

Arizona State ID. First name CARLOS. Last name completely blank, not so much as a smudge.

"Okay," he said dully. "Now I'm panicking."

Nilanjana tailed after him, confused and asking increasingly pointed questions as Carlos wheeled back around and stormed into his room.

His weird visitor was sitting cross-legged on the bed, his feet tucked up under the blanket.

Carlos winged the wallet at him. "Start explaining, _now_. What happened to my name? Who _are_ you?"

Cecil fumbled to catch the wallet and blinked at it. "Huh? Oh. I mean, I told you already? Library fines, and Cecil Palmer, respectively."

"Carlos, what--" Nilanjana bumped into his back, and let out a yelp. "Who the hell is that? You invited someone over? When? _How?"_

Everything was getting a little much for him. The cement-solid fact that he didn't have a last name was butting up against his understanding of the universe up to now, and like two magnets, nothing would fit together.

As he fought to put them together, everything got worse.

Tremors were breaking out over him. He put his face in his hands and tried to breathe. Nilanjana often knew better than to crowd him, knew how he felt about touch, but it was late and she was pressing against his back. A claustrophobic wave struck him, and he stumbled away from her, to his desk chair, collapsing on it and hunching over. It felt better, being small, but also compressed his body in ways that made catching his breath harder.

"Sorry, shit, Carlos I-- oh goddammit," Nilanjana said, guilt thick in her voice. "Carlos, it's going to be alright, just breathe through it."

The frame of the bed made a loud sound. "Excuse me, could I? Just for a second?"

"Who the hell are you?" Nilanjana sounded angry, a touch protective.

"I… don't mean to be rude but I've answered that, like, a dozen times now." Cecil sighed dramatically. "Just let me try something, I'm sort of an old hand at calming the masses."

Carlos could see the floor over the bend of his knee. Bare feet on the rug. "Carlos," Cecil intoned, dropping an octave like a penny into a fountain, the consonants of the name rippling out. "I would like to help you, if I can. Everything feels very far away, and very deep, like quicksand perhaps. Perhaps you're sinking, like into the maw of some great terrible sand beast. The world is often a senseless, cruel place, like drowning, like being swallowed.

"But," he pronounced the 'T' so sharply, it made Carlos blink through the panic haze, "You're not lost yet. Even if the sand is over your head and slipping down your throat and making it hard to breathe, all seems lost until your hand catches." Long fingers slid against his palm, gliding like melting ice into his grip. They squeezed. "You just need to hold on. Sometimes, that's all that's necessary to make it through, is to hold on."

The fingers around him pulsed, tightening and loosening.

Carlos' hand tightened back once, and he held on.

"Great," Cecil said, low and long. "That's all you need to do. Hold on, and let someone else do the lifting. Like so."

Their joined hands pulled away from Carlos' curled position, drawing his arm outward. He shuddered through a breath and lifted his head slowly, looking at Cecil's skin against his.

When he managed to unlock his body, unfolding back into a slouching but less tense position, Carlos followed along Cecil's arm, up to his face. He met those strange eyes, and Cecil grinned brilliantly.

"Hello again," he said pleasantly, squeezing Carlos' hand.

"Uh," Carlos said, face hot. The panic ebbed away and dried out like drops on hot sand. The feeling of being solidly and completely out of his element remained.

Head swiveling slowly, he looked up at Nilanjana. She was standing with her nails tapping her lip, eyes darting between Carlos and Cecil.

"Tea?" Carlos asked, voice hoarse.

 

* * *

 

After supplying a pair of slippers to the inexplicable stranger, they made tea. Three mugs set out on the coffee table, steeping: rooibos for Nils, a valerian herbal blend for Carlos, and jasmine green for Cecil. Carlos sat on the sofa as Nilanjana retrieved the lease documents for their apartment.

Cecil sat on the sofa too, leaving a polite gap between them. He remained draped in the duvet. "Brrr! Haven't been this cold since I visited Luftnarp."

"Sorry," Carlos said, watching him fold up his legs and cover them with the duvet. "The landlord doesn't turn on the heat for another two months or so."

"I imagine it has its benefits. Like being in a nice, warm bed under the heavy weight of all the spare linens and textiles you can pile up on top. The pervasive chill held back by the cavern of your own body heat, just biting at your nose and ears, sort of similar to the tactile illusion of safety we get hiding under covers from indistinct concepts of claws and teeth."

"Yeah. That sounds nice." Which seemed wildly insipid compared to the warm sense he'd just conjured up. Carlos picked up his mug to sip at it and distract his hands.

He was rescued by Nilanjana brandishing a sheaf of papers at him. "It's gone from here too," she said.

Taking them, he read over the lease. All the appropriate places for his last name were blank. His signature still existed on a few pertinent lines, but as he pulled the papers in for a close look, he couldn't figure what he'd written. "Why. Why did I sign this like an general practitioner three weeks from retirement."

Cecil leaned in to see. "It looks like some archaic moon sigils I know."

"Explain everything again," Nilanjana said, picking up her own mug.

So, Carlos explained it all, from the moment they said goodnight to each other to waking up with no memory of his last name and an intruder in his room.

"None of that makes any sort of rational sense," Nilanjana said as a conclusion.

Carlos waved a hand helplessly.

"It does," Cecil said quietly, as if worried about rocking the proverbial boat. When both Carlos and Nilanjana stared at him, he hid behind his mug. "It does! Sorry, probably not to a pair of outsiders, but everyone native to Night Vale knows that the fine for a book more than twenty years overdue is having the name on record expunged from public records. You're lucky your terrible ex didn't have the book for over _thirty_ years, because that's immediate forfeiture of a major sense. Usually vision or touch."

That was quite a lot to unpack. Sinking back against the sofa, Carlos frowned at Cecil.

"Okay," Nilanjana said, audibly making a decision. "You're the… Voice of Night Vale. Which is a place. Presumably a much warmer place."

"It's a desert community," Cecil supplied, brightening at the chance to talk about this Night Vale.

"What does being the Voice entail? Is this…" She sighed unhappily. "Some kind of Metatron situation or what have you?"

"Angels don't exist," Cecil said, which was reassuring, "but that's an interesting comparison! We're not let to know the hierarchy of heaven, but if I _did_ and I got your reference, I would say that… sort of! Yes!" He put his tea down and laced his fingers over his knee. "I'm the host of the community radio show, so it's my job to impart knowledge to the citizens, as well as act as their voice as necessary."

"Grand title for that," Carlos murmured.

"It's a grand position, and one I take very seriously. Usually. But, I mean!" He shrugged. "This Shecago place seems exponentially larger than my beloved Night Vale, so my job is proportionally more important."

"Why were you in my room though?"

"I'm not certain yet, actually? So there's plenty of ways to draw my attention to important events and people, to ensure information is conveyed to the whole town. Some people like the City Council or the Glow Cloud elect to use the metaphysical approaches because that suits them best, but… most people have my cell number and just call me these days." He fixed Carlos with a look, appraising and interested. "I imagine it's to do with you. I feel this... _pull_."

"Pull?"

Nilanjana noisily put her mug down on the table, making them both jump, Carlos startling out of the intense eye contact. "But you claim no responsibility for whatever is going on with Carlos' name."

"Correct," Cecil answered primly. "He's the one who wrote his name down. I'm sure me being summoned here is related, but beyond that, I only have… feelings."

"Feelings?" Carlos echoed.

"Carlos," Nilanjana said sharply. "Okay. You didn't… take his name." Cecil let out a surprised laugh. "Or however we want to refer to this."

"No, no, definitely not." Cecil tapped his mouth idly with his knuckles, humming along to the beat. "At this point, it seems Carlos would need to take someone else's name, ha ha?"

Nilanjana's nose scrunched as she thought this over. Then, she held up a finger. "Hypothesis: We will have to contact this Night Vale to rectify what's been done."

"That seems likely," Carlos agreed. It was normally his place to boil everything down, and having backup in this endeavour helped. "When we figure this out, will you…" Not _disappear_ , that was nonsense. "Return to Night Vale?"

"Oh, I don't know. At some point, I'll be expected to report on this and share what's going on. Outsiders are always big news in Night Vale."

"We won't solve this tonight," Nilanjana said over Carlos' next question. "Sorry to rain on this parade, but it's quite officially and emphatically _too late_. I still have a morning shift to go to, and you have an afternoon class, right?"

A coil of terror tightened in his stomach. "I… I do. Oh my god."

A hand pressed firmly on his leg. Cecil. "There's no point worrying about it now. Unless existential worry is a hobby of yours, then I suppose this is the time for it."

Nilanjana watched Cecil's hand with the same attention she gave measuring cups and medical journals. Carlos refused to let that correlate to his own attention; the weight felt nice and calmed him down. "No, I'm sort of, hm… I like science and mathematics and nature walks, mostly. Collecting interesting things like geological samples. Vinyls too, I like the grooves, like the rings of a tree, you know?"

"I'm going back to bed," Nilanjana announced, standing and leaving the room. "If anyone ends up being a secret ax murderer, just scream or something, alright?"

Cecil nodded along, sparing Nilanjana a quick wave but keeping his gaze on Carlos. "That sounds fun. I mean, really smart and interesting. I love music too, and math, but not really nature. But you'd love Night Vale, the nature out there is lively, and walking around the Sand Wastes at night is almost romantic."

A flash of a half-forgotten dream, quartz sand under starlight. "That does sound nice. Uh. But Nils is right, it's really late. Almost early at this point." He braced himself on the arm of the sofa, holding the tea mug, noting how Cecil reached out to hover a hand in case he stumbled. "I would really prefer if you weren't an ax murderer."

"I'm not. Not even a secret one!" He rose as well, stooping to grab his cup. "We can talk more in the morning?"

He made it a question for some reason. Carlos didn't know why. It seemed an obvious conclusion. "Yeah. I should get you some more blankets, maybe some pillows. You seem very poorly equipped for this climate." That earned his a small smile and Cecil looking away. "I mean, I could-- I think the most polite option would to let you sleep in my bed."

Lilac eyes snapped back to his, and Cecil's face colored. "O-oh? Would it?"

"Oh, I-- I mean like, I would take the sofa, I don't want to imply any, ah, expectations or that, that would be really presumptuous, and inexplicable extradition or not you're a _guest_ , I'm not propositioning you at this point in time."

The noise Cecil made was not what someone would classify as _words_ , but he nodded rapidly along. Clearing his throat a few times, he replied, "Oh, totally, yeah! That'd be super fast for anything other than, like, a love at first sight situation. Anyway, I didn't bring any of the paperwork for-- for that kind of activity, and who-- who has time for filling out the necessary forms for sex anyway, right? It's super late. Or early!"

Carlos huffed out a laugh. "Forms? What? Does… Night Vale have forms you have to fill out before sex?"

A stillness like a freeze frame took hold of Cecil. "Do they not have that here?"

"No."

"Oh. That's good. Or, not good, unless you like that, but that's neat! I mean." He grimaced with his entire face. " _God,_ I'll just. Take the sofa, that's fine."

"Lemme grab some stuff," Carlos said, and hurried away.

There was something sticky to Carlos' thoughts, how it seemed that if, just hypothetically, he let Cecil sleep in his bed, there would be no chance of anything happening. He kept nudging the idea as he put the mugs in the sink and collected more blankets from the narrow shelf in his closet.

Even with another comforter thrown on, Cecil might be cold. The adjustment from an arid state to one with proper weather and winters could be brutal, he knew from experience. And a bed would be more comfortable anyway. What if Cecil had back problems or something? The fact that he was handsome and had that _voice_ and wouldn't push Carlos into anything was not even in the top five reasons it was good hypothetical, no, a _hypothesis_ to test!

No. Nilanjana would disapprove heavily, especially given how poorly his relationship with Vernon had gone.

Carlos handed a stack of bedstuff to Cecil and told him good night before shuffling back off to his own room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stiiiiiiill not sure what i'm doing, i don't usually write without a plan
> 
> also sorry for any heinous mistakes, i don't have a beta fro this fandom


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